LOI
"'You can tell me where they are,' she said softly, but very earnestly."

"The fiery little king of the kitchen bounded from his chair, sprang at
him, and seized him by the throat."

"Flinging away his sword, he knelt beside her."
ELOI

PART I

THE TWO ORPHANS.

[Illustration: Headpiece to Chapter I]

THE KING'S WARRANT.

THE TWO ORPHANS.

CHAPTER I.

At last England and France had formally drawn the sword which they had
sheathed only eight years before at the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle, and
the great struggle known in history as the Seven Years' War had begun
in earnest. Yet although the old countries had until now managed to
abstain from a declared and open rupture in the Old World, it had for
well nigh two years past been far otherwise with their great
dependencies beyond the Atlantic. There, during the years 1754 and
1755, New France and New England had already been carrying on a deadly
conflict, which seemed to increase in intensity and fierceness as the
months rolled on, and in which for some time the royal troops of both
kingdoms had taken a prominent part, notwithstanding the nominal state
of peace between the mother countries. Some short sighted men, indeed,
tried to persuade themselves of the possibility that the colonists
might carry on the war on the soil of the New World, without
necessarily compromising the peace of Europe; but the European powers
had their own apples of discord, and the ambitious designs of the Great
Frederick had now set Europe once more in a blaze.

But what was to be the issue of the struggle in America? With the
history of the last hundred years open before us with such names as
those of Wolfe, Abercrombie, and Wellington; Rodney, Howe, and Nelson
ever ringing now like household words in our ears with such
achievements as those of the plains of Abraham, the sand hills of
Aboukir, Waterloo, the Nile and Trafalgar ever present to our minds, we
are apt enough to ignore the uncertainty which, humanly speaking, in
those days hung about the result of a collision between New England and
New France, backed by the power of their respective sovereign states.
From the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers might, indeed, be expected
an amount of vigour, energy, and self reliance, that must needs
contribute greatly to success in such a contest; but these very
qualities, so far from finding much favour with their rulers in the Old
Country, were like enough to be met with jealousy and distrust, to
produce coldness and estrangement, and perhaps even to weaken the
support of the government in England. In addition to this, the
rivalries and dissensions that were always springing up amongst the
several colonies themselves could hardly fail to interfere materially,
as they had done for years past, with their cordial combination in any
effort, however needful, for their common good. Canada, on the other
hand, was essentially the creation of the parent State, its favoured
offspring; it was unceasingly cherished and fostered as a nursery of
commerce, and as the means of planting the Christian faith amongst the
heathens, over which France would spread her protecting wings with the
jealousy of an eagle defending its young even at the cost of its life.
Yet so far as the colony was concerned that protection had been dearly
bought at a cost of patronage and favouritism that had checked all
healthy exertion amongst the colonists... Continue reading book >>